


You Planted Something I Couldn’t Uproot

by the_desk_fairy



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c., Real Person Fiction, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe: Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, F/M, It’s time to let Sarah rage against all the BS, Monsanto - Freeform, Sustainable Agriculture, farming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:40:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_desk_fairy/pseuds/the_desk_fairy
Summary: Sarah Livingston is a small town California girl who found herself in the spotlight after writing a revolutionary farm-to-plate app, EcoEats. Now, the world seems to have moved on and Sarah feels like she’s left shouting into the void about climate change and the evils of Big Ag.She’s sick of being letting down by the powers that be, especially men. Sitting at the bar during a Farm Aid convention, she wonders if she should just swear off men altogether.Except for maybe that handsome stranger with the soulful blue eyes. He’s pretty cute.
Relationships: Benjamin Tallmadge/Sarah Livingston
Comments: 15
Kudos: 7





	You Planted Something I Couldn’t Uproot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Apfelessig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apfelessig/gifts).



> Welcome y’all! I’m about to do something a little different! 😈 
> 
> Shoutout to the intrepid and brilliant @Apfelessig who offered incredibly insightful beta skills and provided a ton of fantastic ideas on how to make this work on an emotional level and unfold 10x better! Definitely go check out Apfelessig’s work because it’s all brilliant prose and a total treat to read.
> 
> Trigger warning: mentions of farmer mental health and suicide. This is a subject that’s super important to be aware of, especially during all the COVID-19 stressors on food distribution and meat packing, etc.

Back when I was working for a pot farmer, there was this thing my boyfriend always joked about female cannabis plants. 

They don’t work properly if there are males around.

Quick lesson on cannabis crop science: some plants are self pollinating like carrots, while others have either male or female mechanisms just like animals. The males produce pollen that has to make contact with female plants to create seeds, which is why we need bees and other pollinators that are dying across the planet. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

An unpollinated bud off of a female cannabis plant is what you’re after if you’re growing for production. If you’ve got an expensive grow license and you’re paying two grand a month for irrigation on 40 acres of sweet Acapulco Gold, the last thing you need is the miserable fucking male cannibis plant from some asshole hobbyist weed breeder next door. You will have zero usable buds, my friend. That means no harvest, no cash.

Males, they fucking ruin everything.

I consider myself a feminist: I knitted a pussy hat with my roommate in January 2017 and we marched through the streets of Santa Cruz. We were seniors at the University of California SC and in that insular world of climate-crisis-fighting, social justice warriors I felt like the entire country was as enraged as we were.

Then, I went back to Yreka to visit my mom and realized that everybody was too busy trying to make rent to realize that Agent Orange had bamboozled his way into the White House.

Fucking men.

Growing up with a single mom in a trailer park: you learn not to ask for too much, you learn to solve your own problems. When I sat with my mom in her single-wide over winter break and watched that bloated cheeto get sworn into the highest office in the country I decided that it was up to me to address climate change, regional food insecurity, hunger and inequity toward Black and brown communities across this nation. Sure, I was an ignorant college senior; of course that mindset was a complete narcissistic savior complex, but I was a computer science and graphic design double major. I didn’t expect my first app to explode.

EcoEats was kind of a joke at first. 

My roommate at UC Santa Cruz was also a graphic design major and we trimmed at the same pot farm to pay for school. I was bouncing ideas off of her as we sat in this shitty rental unit where that dickhead Randall had us trimming buds. The windows were blacked out; in the eerie illumination of grow lights we talked loudly over the whirring of fans that kept the plants cool and mold-free.

“I’m sorry that Shaanti Farms closed down!” Anna had shouted at me over the fan. “I know how much it meant to you working for them at the farmers market!”

“Thanks.” I replied. “It really sucks, I just feel bad for Vashti and Priyanka having to sell that acreage after trying so hard to grow biodynamic produce.”

“They always had so much for sale at the market! They had, like, the best kale ever!” She frowned. “I don’t understand why they went under!”

“California has one of the densest concentrations of small farms in the country and some of the highest income earners.” I yelled back at her. “I just wish I could tell all the people in those fancy, rich houses on the bay where to get locally raised food!”

“You should just make an app that tells them to stop being rich assholes!” Anna replied.

I smirked.

“Like a push notification: ‘hey fuckwad, how about you buy this kale!” 

“Do it!” Anna goaded. “You’re a brilliant designer, I loved that neighborhood cleanup app you wrote for Hewlett’s class.”

“That was just a hypothetical,” I tried to brush off the compliment, “and Hewlett gave me an A- because he found it ‘a highly implausible concept!’ Even though my code was perfect!” 

Anna laughed at my ridiculous impression of my professor’s snooty British accent.

“Listen, Sarah.” My roommate suddenly sounded more serious than I felt comfortable with. “You’ve pushed yourself so hard the last few terms, I’m concerned that you aren’t sleeping.”

“My mom always says, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” I laughed half-heartedly.

“Your mom works at Grocery Outlet.”

“I’m fine, Anna.” I forced a smile. “After we finish trimming for Randall I have another budtender job in Mission Springs. That will be enough to pay for my last term, and then we graduate. Sky’s the limit, right?”

“Abe wants to stay in Santa Cruz, so I’m pretty sure I’ll still be bartending at DeJong’s after graduation.” Anna snorted. “More like, sky’s the limit for you, Sarah.”

I might have made a similarly self-deprecating remark along with a snarky laugh in reply, but inside I told myself that I’d never accept the terms that dragged Anna down. While I had an equally unambitious, pot-smoking boyfriend at the time, I had no intention of letting him get in my way. No matter where I was, I would never let that be my final destination.

No loser boyfriend could fucking stop me. Nobody.

That spring, I dumped Will. More like I Konmari-ed him from my life: he was no longer bringing me joy and I was spending fourteen hours a day in front of my macbook crafting i-don’t-know-what-but-unless-you-have-dinner-or-beer-leave-me-the-fuck-alone. Upon reflection, dumping might be a strong word; I think I just stopped replying to his texts and I simply didn’t answer the door of my bedroom for nine weeks.

When I emerged I had no boyfriend, six late payments on my used subaru, nine credits remaining to earn my unfinished degree, twenty seven angry voicemails from my mother and the code for a farm-to-plate application that would change my life. 

I had emailed the specs of my app to Priyanka who had gone to work for some fancy company in the Bay area. When she messaged me back with casual interest, I thought that maybe I could hope for enough cash to quit trimming for a little while. Instead, eight months later, I found myself sitting under blinding lights and cameras with Anderson Cooper, explaining how communication within regional food systems is the future: an answer to climate change  _ and _ food insecurity. I wore a fucking pencil skirt and got my eyebrows waxed for that show, but still I felt like the awkward hippie who had accidentally made several billion dollars by bringing the farmer’s market to people’s phones.

The first thing I did was buy my mom a nice rambler in Redding near my grandma. Second, I bought a degraded Christmas tree farm in the Applegate Valley and started a vegan arts collective that sold organic food via EcoEats.

Then, the combination of a bad mushroom trip and some lazy remarks of mine that earned the blazing scrutiny of a Latinx farm workers alliance resulted in me giving every cent away. Sometimes I hit myself in the face when I remember how that douchebag “eco-lawyer” in San Francisco didn’t advise me to at least put a measly 100k into green stocks for my retirement. Or I could have started another company. Blah blah blah. At any rate, I was hell bent on removing the complication of money from my life and Prius McNeuterPants didn’t tell me that perhaps it was rash for a 23 year old to give away 2.6 billion dollars. 

Dudes just have a way of screwing everything up.

Two years after EcoEats took off, I still draw a relatively modest salary from the company that lets me speak and lobby for systemic reform. This is my life now: I’m the poster child for the success of sustainable agriculture and regional food systems. Sometimes I feel like the lone lighthouse advocating for small farms amid an endless sea of monoculture. I’m starting to realize that nobody is really listening to me after all. It was cute when I talked with Stephen Dubner on Freakonomics and quipped with cogent sound bites on the Wall Street Journal’s “The Future of Everything,” but now I feel like all the white men are back to business as usual. 

Running the planet while ignoring everyone else. 

The last six months I’d submitted a few op eds to the Atlantic and the New York Times, lobbied with the National Farmers Union and just tried to rage against Big Ag as much as I reasonably can as a twenty five year old who’s already reached her peak. More recently I’d begun to ask myself, is this all there is? And, am I a joke?

It was these thoughts that churned in my mind at Farm Aid 2019 in East Troy, Wisconsin.

The music lineup at Farm Aid is always an absolute delight, a balm to my frayed nerves. Willie Nelson, John Melencamp, Neil Young, Dave Matthews: it’s all the music I’d heard in my mom’s half-broken down Blazer all summer trucking around Trinity County while my dad logged and we all pretended he wasn’t ignoring us and sleeping around. While it probably should have brought up bad memories, I felt so blissful and free hearing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Crash Into Me.” I was in high spirits when I hit the hotel bar later that night.

“I’ll have a mojito.” I said to the bartender over the noise of the crowd. “Is that mint organic? Great, thanks. No, I’m not worried about the limes, citrus fruit juice doesn't actually get much pesticides. But did you know that farm workers are paid per-piece? Yeah, they can actually make below minimum wage for not picking fast enough! So fucking unfair, right?”

My elbows were pressed against the black quartz counter of the bar and I held my forehead. The beer garden at the festival had been almost as unkind to me as the USDA representative I’d chatted with about the trade wars with China. Holy fucking shit! If the Trump administration is reacting to the indiscretions of a Chinese tech company, why are pork and crop producers absorbing the brunt of this conflict? Tariffs always hit the small-scale producer hardest, and that goddam USDA secretary, Sonny Purdue, just doesn’t fucking care. I understand the concept of a trade deficit, but does Purdue think that food can just sit in warehouses like cell phone parts? No, dummy, the food goes bad if we can’t sell it to China! What the fuck!

“You alright?”

The voice was soft, like the gentle regard of tending a lettuce plant. I found it aggressively nice.

I tilted my head and took in the man standing close at my elbow. He was clearly waiting for the hotel bartender to notice him but he wasn’t asserting himself enough. Probably some disgustingly polite midwesterner.

“I’m fine.” I shrugged noncommittally.

“You’re holding your head.” The man’s eyebrows drew together. He had thick, dark eyelashes that framed innocent, soulful blue eyes.

His concern didn’t fool me. I opted for a bitter truth bomb to send those sweet little eyes elsewhere.

“I just had an unfortunate conversation with some miscreant asshat who thinks Nebraskan soy farmers can pay for Donald Trump’s trade war with China.”

“Such a stupid move on the part of Trump’s administration.” Blue eyes frowned with disgust. “Doesn’t Purdue know that agricultural products just rot in warehouses while these negotiations drag on?”

I blinked twice. 

“It’s bad enough that the two billion dollar stimulus doesn’t cover small farms,” I tested him.

He slid his arms onto the counter next to me and scoffed dryly.

“Two billion dollars might cover a few large operations in the midwest, but it will never address the losses to American farms caused by these tariffs.”

I felt a plunge in my gut, not only because this handsome stranger had echoed my political complaints, but also because his arm was inches from mine and I could feel the heat radiating off his body.

“Hey!” I waved down the bartender. Oddly, being blonde with a cascade of beachy curls at a bar felt like my chief advantage in this misogynistic world. “What are you drinking?” I asked him, trying not to let the pushy crowd press our faces closer than necessary. The young man had tawny brown hair that was cropped close on the sides with longer, tousled waves on top. He wore a blue plaid collared shirt and had a badge for the Farm Aid conference, but I couldn’t see his name or organization.

“Gin and tonic.” He said, although something flashed in his eyes that told me he might have ordered something as stereotypically feminine as a vodka cranberry if he hadn’t been trying to impress me.

I employed my Barbie tactics to secure this stranger a drink.

“Thanks,” he smiled. His lips were full, contrasting the strikingly masculine angle of his jawline. I felt my breath come short when he tapped his glass against mine, his fingers brushing accidentally against my hand.

“I just got off the phone with a Wisconsin soy farmer we work with who’s lost his crop during the negotiations. He had to file for bankruptcy. Six kids and a wife in chemo for breast cancer,” he said. 

“My god!” I murmured.

As he looked down into his drink, his brow creased and mouth pressed in an expression which could only be described as compassion.

“I didn’t know I’d be doing so much counseling in this job,” he chuckled ruefully.

“Did you do that farmer mental health intervention training?” I asked. “The one sponsored by Farm Credit?”

“Yes!” His eyes found mine. “Most stressful two days of my life.”

“Right?” I exclaimed, even though I’d obviously know much greater stress. “I mean, I’m the first person to want to speak frankly about mental health and farmer suicide, but I nearly came unglued when they had us practice our real scenarios.”

His voice rasped with an affirming grunt.

“There was an extension agent from North Dakota in my group who had lost eight farmers this year by suicide,” hesaid. “During the practice session she pretended to be the farmer in distress and she spoke with so much pain --everybody lost it.” He shook his head. 

“Yeah, I think that’s the point,” I pushed back gently.

“Oh, absolutely,” he agreed, “but it certainly was emotionally exhausting, especially for those of us who have actually find ourselves regularly sitting with somebody who’s foreclosing on their third generation farm. My group had to quit early.”

I was about to prod him, arguing that a practice is hardly more difficult than the reality. However, when I glanced at him those dusky lashes were blinking quickly to push away a glassy sheen over his eyes. 

He actually fucking cared.

Without thinking, my hand crossed over the counter and squeezed his arm. He wasn’t a bulky man. I noticed he didn’t have the wind-burned look on his cheeks of somebody who worked outside all day, but his limbs had the strength that could lift tomato crates. He was taking a pull of his drink at that very second but I felt his broad shoulder press into mine in silent response to my touch.

“Damn, I just wanted to grow a little kale,” I said, “and now look, I’m underwater trying to fix everything wrong in the world.”

A smile split across his face.

“What’s that Carl Sagan quote, ‘If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe?’”

“Oh my God, I love Carl Sagan!” My voice peaked in the annoying timber of too much alcohol, but I didn’t care. There was a warmth about his features that seemed safe and welcoming.

His eyes had a sincere sparkle as he tipped his glass toward his face. He set down his drink, the proximity of his fingers to mine hinting at an acknowledgment that I hadn’t let go of his arm.

“I think I know another Sagan quote, hang on...” he looked up at the ceiling. “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

“That’s a nice one.” I allowed myself a goofy, drunken smile.

“It’s true, really,” he said, “if I didn’t believe that I would feel completely snowed under by all the problems in agriculture.”

I was tempted to tell him that his optimism was just another feature of white male privilege but I bit my lip. I did want to believe that love would make all this shit more bearable. 

I decided to take a chance.

The sounds of the crowded hotel bar faded away. Like in a dream, my hand floated upward toward his high cheekbone and I let my fingertips graze his smooth skin. With a slightly unhinged exhale he closed his eyes, those long, sooty lashes fanning against his cheeks. He caught my hand and brought it to his lips.

When he opened his eyes I felt my stomach drop into my Blundstones, he was so raw and guileless. There was nothing controlling or manipulative about the way he wanted me; it was just him, offered in simple surrender. Slow enough to be asking rather than forcing, he leaned in to kiss my mouth.

In my mind, I balked for a fraction of a second. I wasn’t sure I could or wanted to match this man’s vulnerable authenticity, but as his hand curved around the back of my neck I chose to make up for honesty with passion. I snatched up his offering with a drunk, greedy kiss. With a gratified reverberation in his sturdy chest, he returned the intensity of my lips. The more I took, the more he gave, in fact he was nearly sliding off his barstool with my fist gripping the collar of his shirt.

“Hey!” The bartender was in front of us, scowling. “Take it upstairs, kids!”

Blue eyes broke away from my lips; holding me protectively, he addressed the bartender.

“Put mine and hers on room 306.” 

“All of hers?” The bartender shot back.

“Yeah…” He looked so cute with his eyebrow perked in a quizzical expression.

“Oops!” I smiled.

“Let’s go?” He melted into a sheepish grin. The sweetness of his face, the utter chasteness of his question as if he were asking me to pick strawberries with him: all of it should have been my first warning.

And yet now that I think about it, perhaps I was drawn to that undesigning softness he exposed to me. At any point I could have rejected his weakness or made him look foolish, but he kept pulling back the curtain. It made me want to see more of him.

“How about your room?” I suggested, remembering that mine was haphazardly strewn about with every last item from my suitcase. 

“Alright.” He beamed, grabbing my hand.

We raced to the elevator, laughing and stealing kisses with no regard for who might be watching. When the doors clanked shut and the ground lifted under me, I felt my blood rush the opposite direction. 

My hands were all over him: the defined planes of his pecs and abs, those kind shoulders that surely carried so much more than the weight of his button down, the sleek curve of his toned ass. He handled me with the manners of a gentleman from two hundred years ago, but my exploring touch was drawing little gasps and ‘oh god’s that should have been my second alert. 

I just figured I was that good at turning a dude on.

When we pushed into his room and turned on the light, I barely registered his sparse, militantly organized items. I sat down on the bed and noticed a blue suit hanging in the corner, a boring black carryon and two books on his nightstand. To this day, I wonder if I would have continued had I taken the time to observe that one book was a Bible, the other was “Seeds of Science” by Mark Linas. Both ought to have sent me running, which would have spared me from what happened next. 

He sat down beside me and began kissing me slowly, perhaps worshipfully. His lips wandered down my neck and teased the soft skin with hesitation that made it all the more tantalizing. I eagerly ignored his change of pace and began clawing at the buttons of his shirt. I ripped the blue plaid apart and traced the graceful angles of him showing through the fitted white undershirt. As he wriggled out of the sleeves of his button down, his breath was coming ragged; I pulled my black tee over my head and he made a sound like his heart had stopped. 

I froze.

The look on his face was so unprepared, his blue eyes wide with shock and unhindered wanting. There I was, sitting in my unflattering plant-dyed bralette that left little to the imagination, and he was speechless. No, he was overcome.

That’s when I knew, but I had to be sure.

I took his shaking hand and placed it between my breasts. His eyes closed again for a moment in disbelief; I didn’t mind the way he regarded me like a deity. 

Slowly, questioningly, I pulled the elastic of my bralette up over my head and threw the garment across the room. That’s when he audibly cried out.

“Oh my God,” he gasped, “you’re real. Oh God.”

There was no mistaking this: he clearly had not done this before.

I worried the edge of my lip between my teeth while he lost his mind. I knew I should have gotten out of there right then, but another part of me was completely charmed by his innocent praise. He kept telling me I was perfect, even though he was looking at unevenly shaped boobs, armpit hair and an ill-advised marijuana tramp stamp. It was nice to hear. 

Maybe, assuming I liked what I saw hanging inside those expensive dark jeans, I could walk him through this.

After a moment’s indecision, I stood up, grabbed hold of his overpriced leather belt, and pulled him up next to me. As I unbuckled him it was clear my confidence sparked a flicker of arousal on his spellbound face. I felt the place between my legs start to echo the burning longing in his eyes. Whether by accident or by choice, he pulled his white undershirt up over his face just as his jeans dropped around his ankles. It was better that he was veiled from my reaction.

The outline inside his Calvins told me he was absolutely ready and he was decently sized. Not enormous, but not off the mark enough to make me want to stop. Besides, he was grabbing my waist now, kissing my forehead, shuddering as my breasts pressed against him. He told me that he had never seen anything so lovely.

“May I take off your jeans?” He asked.

“Yes,” I replied. 

His voice and movements had the gentle persuasiveness of somebody who worked with livestock or horses: easy and slow, like I was about to bolt any second.

I ran my fingers through his impossibly fluffy hair as he fumbled with the high waisted buttons of my jeans and slipped them down my hips. All that remained was my old grey organic cotton underwear. Cursing myself for not composting this pair a long time ago, I gingerly pushed them down my legs and kicked them to the corner.

I was pleasantly gratified by his expression when I looked up.

“You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

His eyes were softened, heavy with something more reverend than just lust, his lips were open: every piece of him was trained on me with perfect submission and adoration. I could overlook his insipid, generic words for more of that dogged devotion.

Casting him what I hoped was a searing glance, I looped my thumbs inside the waistband of his jersey boxers. As I pulled him free for what I imagined was his first time, I considered explaining later about working conditions at manufacturers that supply Calvin Klien. 

The thought dropped away as I took all of him in. Being naked seemed to make him more vulnerable, but not in a weak way. He was bared and giving himself to me: all 6’1’’ of his lithe, structured form and an attentive cock that was actually a lot thicker than I thought. His body had the sturdy lines of somebody who grew up working out of doors but never learned to substitute that activity with the weight room. I wasn’t really into the jacked gym-rat look, actually this man was my ideal: the kind of strength that can throw bales of hay all day and then kick back for a beer without counting macros or whatever. I felt my pulse start to quicken.

“Do you want to do this?” I asked, taking the role of determining consent since his lips seemed to have stopped working.

“I…” The look on his face made me worry he was about to black out. “I do,” he said. 

“Alright.” I gave him a dark look and shoved him onto the bed. Each passage of feelings was completely readable on his face: surprise, arousal, fear, and more arousal. He flickered through this sequence several times as I pounced onto him, planted my hands on his chest, and kissed him like I was taking his soul.

“Oh, Christ!” He gasped as his hands drifted up my sides and found purchase on my breasts. I alternated between kissing him and biting at his neck as I studied his expression. 

I considered asking him if he knew what to do, but the look on his face was so trusting. I decided to just go for it. Working my own sensitive bit, I teased the damp petals of my labia around the very tip of his hardened length with an expert twist of my hips.

His breathing sounded like he was undergoing cardiac arrest.

“Too much?”

He shook his head, no. 

I was getting impatient; the low buzz of need was compounding in my clit and I wanted to feel his nice thick cock ride up that sensitive interior ridge just inside. Part of my brain told me to be gentle on his first time and reciprocate his sweet, sensitive approach. Another part told me to fuck his little brains out and leave him to die on the floor.

I chose the second option. My wolfish femininity swallowed his cock in one swift motion. I rocked my hips just how I liked it: fast, dirty, with the sounds of flesh crashing together like my ferocious delight.

“Oh God!” He wailed, his fingers digging into the ugly comforter. “Oh my G...mmf!”

I clamped my hand over his mouth and closed my eyes so I could focus on my release.

But I never came. I felt him slacken just as I approached the brink.

“Ugh, no!” I grunted, ramming myself onto him for a little more friction. This was just my luck: I bedded a beautiful, blue eyed Farmer Boy with a solidly A- dick and I couldn’t even get off? I wanted to slap him for finishing so quickly.

He lay on the bed with his limbs flung everywhere like he had expired. I rolled off beside him, trying to work myself back to the edge with my fingers. I stopped when I heard him sniff.

Please, mother of God, no.

I flipped onto my side. Blue eyes had raised himself onto one elbow, looking down at me. He laced one arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him, brushing my loose golden tangle of waves from my face. His eyes were misty and it was… just too damn much for me. I needed to crawl out of my skin and get back upstairs to my room. 

My brain told my body to slip off the bed and collect my garments.

My body was locked in by those blue eyes. 

Just as soon as I had seen the tears, he blinked them away and a little smile teased the corner of his mouth.

He leaned down and kissed the edge of my eyebrow and eye, still stroking my hair. The hypnotizing, yet strangely intimate contact of his hands on my hairline and scalp made me forget the disappointing sex for a few minutes. My limbs started melting, I felt the tiredness of travel float to the surface. When he stopped running his fingers through my hair, he scooped me off the bed and settled us both underneath the sheets. 

I prickled with annoyance that he would assume I’d literally sleep with him. I typically never stayed the night after a casual encounter and I certainly wasn’t planning on doing so now.

Wordlessly, he wrapped his arms around my body and rested his chin on my shoulder. I could feel his heart beating against my back. There was something oddly wholesome about laying there with him: his warmth surrounded me and smoothed my frayed nerves. Cuddling didn’t have to be emotional, perhaps I could simply abscond with this offering too.  It's not like I had to stay the whole night. Maybe just a few minutes. Ten minutes. God, he was so warm.

As I meditated on a sneaky departure, I felt him sigh and breathe deeply against my neck. Even in sleep, even without me looking at him I could sense that he cared about me. The feelings were practically radiating off of his body pressed against my back. It made me all the more guilty for leaving him; my eyelids grew heavy and I yawned. He was going to be so disappointed waking up to find me gone.

***

Sunlight was pouring through a thin gap in the blackout curtain. The AC unit under the window blared on again, inexplicably adding an icy bluster to the already chilly room.

As my brain slowly returned to my body I felt something heavy across my shoulder and chest. 

It was the arm of a man.

Oh hell no.

Something big stirred against me, lips pressed into the back of my neck. A large, rough hand slid up my body as I turned my head toward him; he held my face and looked into my eyes like I had been his first thought every morning of his life. His soft lips closed around mine. I couldn’t not kiss him back, but I also couldn’t stay in the focal point of his brilliant, blinding feelings toward me. Even before I had finished kissing him my feet slipped out from under the covers.

I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. 

“Hey.” He looked puzzled, especially as he squinted in the light, his tawny hair mussed with scruffy charm.

I stood and reached for my clothes.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was cluttered with sleep, but his tone was so sincere it cut me.

He clambered out of bed behind me. My heart pinched as he picked up my shirt and bralette, handing me my ticket out of his room even as his face questioned why I would leave him with so little feeling.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally, struggling to haul my legs into my jeans. “I’m speaking on a panel today.”

“Oh.” His reply seemed lighter, as if he clung onto my excuse as a reason not to think I was rejecting him. Which I absolutely was, even though I felt bad about hurting him. “I’d like to come hear you,” he said.

“Um, well it's first thing this morning, I’m actually worried about being late. Have you seen my other sock?” I held up one bright pink Farm to Feet woolen ankle sock.

He grunted and ducked over by the bed, looking along the floor.

“I’m speaking on a panel this morning too,” he said, his voice muffled.

“Really.” I wasn’t listening. “Which session?”

“Tech and the Future of Agriculture,” he replied, still focused on finding my sock.

A chill crept up my spine. That was my session.

I stopped still. “Oh my God.”

He rose slowly, his brow creasing.

“You’re with Bayer Crop Science.”

“Yes, I’m really glad we can be at Farm Aid this year!” He said with a little perk of pride. “I’m in public relations.”

This could not be happening.

“You know what I thought when I saw Bayer Crop Science listed in that email from the conference organizer?” I said bitterly. “I thought, ‘what the actual hell are you doing here?’” 

He blinked, an incredulous frown forming on his lips.

“No, really.” I snarled. “At a fundraising event literally themed this year around farmer mental health, your bosses have the audacity to send a representative of the biotech arm of a massive drug company?”

“I’m part of a staff that awards grants.” His eyes were still searching me like his midwestern niceness could scale my walls. “We help farmers and food access programs.”

“Yeah,” I said sarcastically. “You help them get into massive amounts of debt buying your pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that screw the land out of its nutrients and fuck up the environment! What’s fucking helpful about that?”

“How about offering technology that allows food to be grown at an affordable scale?” He retorted, starting to redden. “Also, last year we gave 14 million dollars to charities worldwide!”

“Charity?” My voice was echoing off the walls. “Are you seriously trying to say that charity isn’t a fucking excuse that keeps oppressive powers in control?”

His mouth opened like a fish, his eyes narrowed with indignation.

“Don’t you understand why Farm Aid exists?” I laughed acerbically. “Willie Nelson, John Melancamp and all those rich musicians out there noticed that farmers are going out of business because they’re all being run into the ground by your goddam corporation!” I jammed my finger into his bare chest to punctuate the last three words.

We were standing inches apart, both our chests were rising and falling forcibly. I wore a fierce snarl on my face and his eyes were blazing with his own self righteous anger.

“What you’re saying is completely irrational!” He nearly shouted. “America has 330 billion people and it’s the largest agricultural exporter on the planet! How do you think all that food gets grown?”

“How about by a multiplicity of small farms connected through an advanced communication portal to supply their regional food system?” The familiar tagline spouted out of my lips, almost without me thinking about it.

“Oh my God.” His eyes closed. “You’re that EcoEats woman.”

He might as well have called me a nut job.

“You’re damn right I am.” I replied with a proud smirk.

The strings connecting us had been stretched thin. One by one I heard them snap.

“I’ll see you at the panel.” His mouth was a thin line.

He held out my underwear. 

I gave him a sour look and snatched my panties from his hand. As I ripped the last bit of evidence of our night from his grasp, a look of pain darted across his face. 

He looked like he might have said something, but I was just fucking done. I fled his room and stormed down the fluorescent lit hallway of the hotel, staring at the hideous pasley carpeting.

Unbelievable. I had just let another disappointing dickwad screw me. Like, actually screw me.

Well, two can play at that game. 

When I got back to my room, I found my notes and wadded them up, shoving them in the recycling. No more boring jargon about the hope of technology to solve our problems. No more cute imagery about green rolling hills and neighbors using an app to share kale. It was time to stop talking about those ideals and fucking rage against Bayer Crop Science and corporate ag.

The panel was in an hour and a half. I switched on Foreigner through my little bluetooth speaker and I hopped in the shower, scrubbing off the patriarchy with vicious glee. My makeup was usually minimal and natural looking, but this time I added sharp, refined wings with my eyeliner and used just a little more eyebrow pencil. The curling iron made my hair fall in big, dramatic waves that fell away from my face like a goddess stepping onto the shores of her power.

As I slipped on my structured hemp sheath dress, I caught a glimpse of my Mary Jane tattoo. 

Maybe my old boyfriend was right.

Females are better off when males aren't around.

**Author's Note:**

> ‘SUP FAM! What did you think about this?
> 
> If you want a deep dive into the kind of agriculture Sarah is promoting, Patagonia’s free short film “Unbroken Ground” does a great job introducing the concept. https://vimeo.com/169559548 
> 
> Some other things you can check out to really get into this:
> 
> Watch the documentary “Food Inc.” by Michael Pollan 
> 
> Watch Gabe Brown of Kiss the Ground give a TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfTZ0rnowcc


End file.
